Often scenes have stronger memories for me than the films themselves. Not much about Crimson Tide sticks with me. I remember it as an echo of greater films like Run Silent, Run Deep and Das Boot. But what does resonate for me is the scene-chewing that Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman bring in their fight for command of the ship. There have been many scenes like it where a captain and a first officer clash as they each try to uphold their individual beliefs. Such clashes have been featured in historical classics like Mutiny on the Bounty and modern sci-fi films like Star Trek, but no modern scene crackles with the tension that Washington and Hackman bring to the screen:

There are scenes in films created simply to demonstrate to the audience how tough a character is. Often they are action scenes. But sometimes a crafty director can show a character’s toughness simply by how they answer a question.

My favorite scene in Ben Affleck’s The Town is like that. A heist film with several shootouts worthy of Heat, the film is anchored between the friendship of Affleck and Jeremy Renner’s characters. In this scene Affleck asks Renner a question. I love the way Renner answers. It’s the way true friends should answer. The action scene that follows is just icing on their character sketch: